Founded in 1962, Santa Barbara Winery is Santa Barbara's first commercial winery since the prohibition era. In fact, Santa Barbara Winery opened its doors ten years before any other winery in Santa Barbara County. Today, the winery and tasting room are at the heart of Santa Barbara’s Urban Wine Trail, just blocks from the beautiful Pacific Ocean.

While Santa Barbara Winery is best know for their Santa Barbara County Chardonnay, which can be found nationwide and abroad, they specialize in a multitude of varietal wines made from French and Italian grapes of both fame and obscurity.Santa Barbara is home to four separate American Viticultural Areas (AVAs), each with its own distinct climates and soil types, which allows local growers to grow a variety of different grapes throughout the county.

Santa Barbara Winery offers award-winning wines made from such familiar grapes as Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc, as well as less commonly encountered botrytized dessert wines, the very rare deep, dark Lagrein, and more. All of the grapes used are sourced from estate vineyards and neighboring vineyards in Santa Barbara County.

The tasting room is located in the winery itself. You can enjoy a flight of the current vintage while watching the next vintage being made. Santa Barbara Winery also offers wines by the glass and private, candlelit VIP tastings* in the barrel-aging room, accompanied by a gourmet cheese platter and the undivided attention of your own personal sommelier.*Requires 24 hour advanced reservations.

Fun Fact• Winemaker Bruce McGuire has been with Santa Barbara Winery for over 30 years. He is known in local wine circles as the “Yoda” of Santa Barbara Wine Country for his vast knowledge, inscrutable demeanor and often cryptic phraseology.

Fun Fact• Primitivo is the Italian name for Zinfandel, a grape whose origins have been traced to Croatia. Wines made from vines brought to the US from Italy may be labeled as either Primitivo or Zinfandel.